ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY: Human-animal relations and the rise of veterinary medicine pot

Animals, Disease and Human Society explores the history and nature of our dependency on other animals and the implications of this for human and animal health.. • animal domestication;

In recent years, the issue of animal disease has seldom been out of the headlines The

emergence of BSE and the threat of food-borne infections such as E.coli and salmonella

have focused public attention on the impact of animal disease on human society

However, the problem of animal disease is far from new Animals, Disease and Human Society explores the history and nature of our dependency on other animals and the

implications of this for human and animal health

Writing from a historical and sociological perspective, Joanna Swabe’s work discusses such issues as:

This account spans a period of some ten thousand years, and raises important questionsabout the increasing intensification of animal use for both animal and human health Allthose interested in human-animal relationships or in public health issues will find

Animals, Disease and Human Society a thought-provoking and rewarding work

Joanna Swabe is a Postdoctoral Researcher affiliated to the Amsterdam School for

Social Science Research, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

• animal domestication;

• the consequences of the human exploitation of other animals, including links

between human and animal disease;

• the rise of a veterinary regime, designed to protect humans and animals alike;

• the implications of intensive farming practices, pet-keeping and recent

biotechnological developments

TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY

1 SCIENCE AND THE MEDIA

Alternative routes in scientific communication

Massimiano Bucchi

2 ANIMALS, DISEASE AND HUMAN SOCIETY Human-animal relations and the rise of veterinary medicine

Joanna Swabe

ANIMALS, DISEASE AND

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Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

Animals, disease and human society: human-animal relations and the

rise of veterinary medicine/Joanna Swabe

Includes bibliographical references and index

1 Veterinary medicine—History 2 Domestic animals—Social aspects—History 3 Human—animal relations—History

4 Zoonoses—History I Title

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Acknowledgements vi

3 Animals, disease and human social life: from ancient times to the early

5 The intensification of livestock production and the veterinary regime

6 Pandering to pets: pet-keeping and the emergence of small-animal

Every book has its own history This one originally began life as a doctoral dissertation atthe Amsterdam School for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam under the

title of The Burden of Beasts While researching and writing this volume I benefited

greatly from the moral support and practical advice provided by all my friends andcolleagues at the Amsterdam School I am especially grateful to Joop Goudsblom andBart van Heerikhuizen for their enthusiastic supervision and support of my work.Throughout the past few years, I have profited immensely from their wisdom, guidanceand encouragement I would also like to acknowledge Anneke van Otterloo, Fred Spierand Nico Wilterdink of the University of Amsterdam for their insightful comments andcritique of the final manuscript; and Peter Koolmees and Jan van Logtestijn of theFaculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Utrecht for going over the veterinaryand veterinary historical content of my work with a fine-tooth comb Likewise, I am grateful to Juliet Glutton-Brock, Liliane Bodson and James Serpell for their invaluablecomments on Chapters 2, 3 and 6 respectively; and also to the various veterinarians whoafforded me access to their busy practices in the earliest stages of my research

Naturally, I would also like to thank my family and close friends for their support Myparents, Eve and Tony Swabe, have always encouraged my academic endeavours andundoubtedly will be proud of this volume, as will the rest of my kith and kin; mostparticularly my grandparents, Sid and Cissie Gasson, to whom it is dedicated My specialthanks also go out to Hella Steins and Mieke van Stigt who have helped me get throughthe writing process more or less intact; and to Ian Macdonald for being my long-suffering partner in crime Finally, this book about human-animal relations would not be complete without mention of the non-human creatures that share my life I have learned much about the nature of the relationship between people and pets from living under the sameroof as three fiendish felines In fact, strange as it may seem, it is perhaps to Apie, anelderly black-and-white tom, that I owe the greatest debt of gratitude Were it not for theinordinate amount of time and money that I have spent on him at the vet’s, I might never have hit upon the idea of taking the veterinary profession as my subject of study at all

INTRODUCTION

On animals we depend

In modern industrial society, where everyday existence often seems completely divorcedfrom the natural world, it is all too easy for we humans to ignore the extent of ourdependency on other animals For the denizens of the great urban sprawls that typify themodern age, encounters with animals tend to be quite minimal In towns and cities, theonly animals that prevail are those that lurk around our homes and gardens as pets, thosewild birds that inhabit the polluted skies and the vermin that creep stealthily through thesewers Occasionally, the odd police horse may impinge upon this urban landscape, or acity farm might bring the sights and sounds of the countryside within arm’s reach However, the closest that the average urban dweller will usually get to a chicken, cow,pig or sheep in everyday life is when they pluck a vacuum-packed cut of meat from the refrigerated shelves of the local supermarket for the evening meal Even then, it is likelythat they will be scarcely aware of—or will even question—the origins of their food The animal form will have been carefully concealed in colourful and hermetically-sealed packaging, often with all traces of blood, vessels and fats removed Alternatively, it mayhave been enshrouded in crispy crumbs or bathed in delectable sauces or marinades,disguising the meat still further In today’s world, it is extremely easy to dissociate theproduct that is consumed from the living, breathing and feeling creature from whence itcame (Fiddes 1991)

We are in fact dependent on animals to provide most of the protein that we consume.Meat, dairy produce and eggs constitute a significant part of the modern western diet Attimes these animal products are eaten to excess; sometimes there is a reluctance toconsume them at all In recent years, for example, health concernshave increasingly led to

an apparent decline in the consumption of red meat and an increase in poultry and fisheating Furthermore, an increasing sensitivity to animal welfare and environmental issueshas led more and more people to reject the consumption of meat and fish altogether.Vegetarianism is currently enjoying increasing popularity, although only a smallproportion of those who stop eating meat will also cease to consume animal-derived protein altogether Even when animal flesh has been excluded, dairy produce and eggswill often continue to play an important role in the vegetarian diet.1 However, our dependence on animals to provide a large proportion of our food does not simply stop atthe provision of meat, milk and eggs

The modern western diet is a highly complex one that is greatly reliant upon manufactured foods A supermarket today is like an Aladdin’s cave where one can find everything that one’s heart and stomach desires From gourmet microwave meals to

mouth-watering cakes, biscuits and pastries, literally hundreds of ready-made food products line the shelves to entice the consumer But what goes into these products? Howare they made? Take, for example, confectionery; a packet of, let us say, wine gums mayseem completely innocuous until one takes the trouble to read the label High on the list

of ingredients one is likely to find reference to a substance called ‘gelatine’ These tasty sweets may seem somewhat less appetising when one realises that gelatine is in fact athickener that is obtained by boiling the skins, tendons, ligaments and bones ofslaughtered animals (Ockerman and Hansen 1988:132–57) At first glance, confectionery bears very little relationship to cattle, but the link is very often there In reality, much ofthe manufactured food that we today ingest is not always of such obvious animal origin;

so much so that even the most committed of vegetarians can end up consuming products of the slaughterhouse unwittingly Unless one has an encyclopaedic knowledge

by-of ingredients and food additives, falling foul by-of slaughterhouse by-products is easy Moreover, reading labels is also far from infallible; a substance, such as glycerine, canderive either from the abattoir, or from vegetable sources

Our dependency on animals as the providers of food thus goes far beyond simply theproduction of meat, milk and eggs; what remains of the animal after it has been used inlife and its quality edible parts removed after death is essential to the production ofmanufactured foods Slaughtered animals are generally exploited to the full and thesubstances obtained from dead animals are a valu-able source of income for farmers and abattoir owners (see Appendix, Tables 2, 3 and 4) After slaughter, precious little of the animal is wasted: the fats, gelatine, glycerine, rennet and collagen commonly found infood are all generally derived from slaughtered animals Glycerine, for instance, is used

as a humectant (moistener) and solvent for other food additives Rennet, an enzyme withcoagulant properties used in the manufacture of cheese, is obtained from the stomachs ofslaughtered calves (Ockerman and Hansen 1988:198) Collagen too derives from theconnective tissue from meat, and is found in food and also, more commonly, cosmetics.Even the E numbers that are found almost ubiquitously in manufactured food may derivefrom animals Food additives, such as emulsifiers, stabilisers, thickeners and glazingagents, can often be of animal origin In addition to these slaughterhouse by-products, one may find other animal ingredients such as lactose and lecithin that are derived frommilk and eggs respectively Even those vegetarians who enjoy a tipple might beunpleasantly surprised to discover that their favourite beverage contains rather more thanjust alcohol Beer conditioned in casks, for instance, requires fining to clear the yeastwhich is suspended in the liquid during the brewing process Isinglass, a substancederived from the bladders of sturgeon, is commonly used to perform this task Similarly,wine production also involves fining: isinglass, gelatine, egg albumen, casein, chitin(from the shells of crabs and lobsters) and, in the past, even ox blood have beencommonly used for this purpose (Bowler 1990:110–11).2

Further to food, we are also dependent on animals for their natural fibres and hides Textiles made from wool provide us with warmth and floor coverings, animal hair andbristles are used to make brushes and hide to make shoes, clothes, furniture, sportsequipment and even cleaning cloths Parchment and vellum are also made from animalskin Animal fur is not only used to make coats and hats, but can also be found on

children’s toys Duck and goose down is used to fill pillows, duvets and sleeping bags,and feathers used to decorate hats or make quills for calligraphy Animal bones are used

to make high-quality china goods Further to this, animal fats from the slaughterhouse,such as tallow, can be used to produce cheap candles and soap Other abattoir by-produce

is commonly found in cosmetics Moisturising creams, for instance, often containcollagen or the animal proteins reticulin and elastin; hair conditioners are made usingkeratin, an animal protein obtained from wool or the slaughterhouse Stearates are alsoused as emollients in creams and lotions, as well as in lipsticks, shampoos andasemulsifiers for perfumes Additionally, lanolin, a substance obtained from the greasefound on sheep wool, is often found in cosmetics It may surprise many people to learnthat although their cosmetics may not necessarily have been tested on animals, theynonetheless contain ingredients that often derive from the slaughterhouse Likewise,photography is entirely dependent upon gelatine for processing Unlike many otheringredients, there is no alternative to this substance if one wishes to make photographicprints (Ockerman and Hansen 1988:152) Even the medicines that we ingest or inject areoften of animal origin: e.g insulin, amino acids, oestrogen, progesterone, testosterone,steroids and, less frequently, vitamin B12 and calcium (Ockerman and Hansen 1988:176–200) Garden and agricultural fertilisers may also contain dried blood and bone-meal, in addition to animal manure (Kotula 1991) Finally, animal remains are commonlyrendered down and used to make feed for agricultural animals The wisdom of feedingherbivores on the remains of other creatures, however, has recently come into question inthe light of the emergence of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the so-called

‘mad cow disease’ (Fisher 1997; Lacey 1994)

In the modern world, we are also highly dependent on animals to test the safety and reliability of many of the products that we use in our everyday lives Animals arecommonly employed in laboratory settings to gauge the potential toxicity of ordinaryhousehold products such as shampoos, detergents, toothpaste, washing powder, glues,pesticides, cosmetics and toiletries, in addition to testing for the kind of eye and skinirritation such products may possibly cause Even the cigarettes to which a substantialproportion of the western population are addicted have also been tested on animals duringthe course of their development and manufacture Animals have also been used by themilitary to assess and improve the effectiveness and impact of modern weaponry Thephysical effects of poisonous gases, radiation and bullets have, for example, beenappraised through the use of animals Likewise, animals have also made useful tools forpsychological research, providing behavioural data from which, for example, humanmental processes have been imputed (Singer 1990:25–94) Furthermore, animal testing is more or less standard in the pharmaceutical industry Before medicines are deemed safefor human use, they are required under governmental regulations to undergo stringenttests In the earlier stages of development, such tests will often involve gauging thedrug’s effect and potency in animals Even the vaccines and drugs employed for veterinary use will generally have undergone extensivetests for quality control on laboratory and target animals in order to ensure their safety for use on other animals (vander Kamp 1994) While alternatives have been developed that, in some circumstances,obviate the need for experimentation on live animals—and, in recent years, the numbers

and kinds of animals used for experimentation have been significantly reduced—animal use within the biomedical and life sciences remains commonplace Irrespective ofchanges in attitudes and scientific practices, the scientific and medical researchcommunity still have a vested interest in perpetuating animal experimentation given theemployment opportunities it offers for both researchers and technicians

Aside from their roles as the providers of edible and useful ingredients and as the tools

of science, animals in our society are also commonly used for entertainment andrecreational purposes Zoological gardens and wildlife parks, for instance, provide uswith the opportunity to observe exotic and often dangerous wild animals Likewise, wealso turn to television, which has taken the animal kingdom as one of its favouritesubjects to enlighten and entertain We visit circuses to watch animals perform death-defying feats and attend gymkhanas, horse races and dog tracks to see—and sometimes even bet on—the skill and speed with which animals can move at human command Equine mounts are also saddled up for pure recreation Cantering on horseback throughthe countryside or parks is a pastime that many enjoy; some even using these animals toindulge themselves in yet another ‘sporting pleasure’ involving other creatures, namely the hunting and killing of foxes and deer Horseriding may also be used to assist thetherapy of disabled and handicapped people, particularly children; such ‘hippotherapy’ has been found to have significant emotional and physical benefits (CSS report 1988:36–7) We even enjoy riding on the backs of trussed-up donkeys when we visit the seaside.Animals are also kept recreationally as a hobby; cat and dog fanciers attend shows toeagerly parade and win prizes for the specimens that they have painstakingly bred andgroomed, while those keeping or collecting more unusual pets such as reptiles, insectsand ornamental fish often belong to specialist clubs and societies that service their animalinterests Caged birds and aquaria are also kept purely for ornamental purposes, asdecoration for homes, restaurants, offices and other public places (CSS report 1988:3–5)

As we shall see later in this volume, animals are also widely kept by people as pets for awide variety of reasons, the most significant of which being the pure companionship thatthey can offer On a more perverse note,animals may sometimes serve a rather dubious recreational function as the subjects of pornography and sexual delight (Dekkers 1992) Finally, we are reliant on animals to perform highly specific tasks within our society Dogs, in particular, have been found to have a multitude of working uses throughout theages Sheepdogs have for centuries been trained to herd and protect flocks of sheep.Likewise, large and powerful breeds, such as Alsatians, Dobermans and Rottweilers,have been frequently employed to guard and protect private property Today, the policeand military services also commonly use Alsatians in their routine work to intimidate andapprehend suspects Furthermore, police, military and customs authorities employ smallerand specially trained ‘sniffer’ dogs in order to search for illegal drugs and explosives The canine sense of smell and the species’ great tractability have also made them useful helpers in the rescue of trapped and injured people after accidents and disasters Theability to track and retrieve prey is also an age-old character trait that has to this day made the dog a favourite hunting partner for humans Throughout the past few decades,canines have increasingly been used to help humans as guide dogs for the blind, hearingdogs for the deaf and as service dogs for the disabled Horses are today also employed as

working animals, generally by the police and military Sometimes their use is purelyceremonial, but with their size and brute force they are often utilised for crowd controland for surveillance purposes

This catalogue of animal usage is by no means exhaustive There are many more ways

in which we depend on animals in our everyday lives, not all of them as practical as thoseuses listed above We should not, for example, underestimate the important role thatanimals have often played in cultural thought and practice As various anthropologistshave been keen to point out, animals possess a great symbolic power and the way inwhich they have been represented in various cultures, including our own, has influencedboth the manner in which we view human identity and think about other species (e.g.Douglas 1966; Lévi-Strauss 1966; Ingold 1988; Willis 1990) Animals are, it seems, not only good to eat, but also ‘good to think’ (Harris 1985a; Tambiah 1969) The power of animal symbolism and representations can clearly be found today in the animal imagerythat pervades today’s society through the mass media, advertising and film (Baker 1993)

We are also dependent on animals to enrich our language: animals provide powerfulmetaphors with which we can describe others, in addition to being the source of a wholehost of extremely effective insults on which wecan depend to cause our fellow humans emotional injury (Leach 1964; Fiddes 1991)

About Animals, Disease and Human Society

This book is primarily about our species’ great dependency on other animals It is aboutthe way in which animals have been manipulated and used to service human needs,desires and requirements throughout human history More importantly, this book is aboutthe serious repercussions that humankind has had to face as a consequence of its ever-increasing and intensifying exploitation of animals When I speak of animal exploitation,

I do not intend it in any kind of derogatory or moralistic sense: this book is most

definitely not about animal rights or human wrongs Although the moral status of animals

within human society is a very important issue indeed, it has not been the specific focus

of my work More to the point, I feel that it is a subject that has already been dealt withmore than sufficiently in the existing literature on the human-animal relationship The philosophical, political and ethical aspects of the rights of animals have, for example,been extensively and intelligently discussed by authors such as Peter Singer (1990), MaryMidgley (1983) and Tom Regan (1984); while the more sociological angle on the subject

of animal rights has already been covered by Keith Tester (1991) My aim, as asociologist, is to provide as dispassionate a view as possible of our relationship with otheranimals, rather than to become embroiled in political and moral debate In this respect Ihave used the expression ‘animal exploitation’ throughout this volume in its very strictestsense, i.e that we derive benefit from utilising animals to our own ends Indeed, it is myview that humans tend to regard animals as a natural resource; they provide us with areliable, continual and self-renewing supply of the protein, hide, natural fibres, manureand muscle power, etc., on which we depend (Swabe 1996) It is my contention that theexploitation of animals has become part of—what Pierre Bourdieu (1984) has described

as—our habitus; in other words, it is a principle that the vast majority leave unquestioned

in their everyday lives

The apparently tacit assumption that humans have the prerogative to exploit other creatures to their own ends has in fact found a great deal of concrete support throughoutthe history of European society, most particularly within the teachings of the Judaeo-Christian tradition According to the biblical narrative of Genesis 1:26–8 and Genesis 9:2–3, humankind’s right to have dominion over and subdue other living creatures was aGod-given one Human ascendancy over the natural world was, thus, taken to be part andparcel of the divine plan Under the influence of such theological rationalisations, animalswere simply understood by people to be there, and specially designed by the creator, toserve specific human purposes In this regard, Keith Thomas cites one early eighteenth-century physician who went so far as to argue that God even made ‘horse’s excrement smell sweet, because he knew that men would often be in its vicinity’ (Thomas 1983:17–19) Few theological thinkers throughout the early modern period cared to even questionthe biblical licence to exploit animals Indeed, the Roman Catholic church appears tohave overlooked the issue altogether; perhaps, it has been suggested, because Catholicismassumed there to be a huge gap between animals—that were irrational—and the rational humans who possessed immortal souls (Maehle 1994:82)

Theological justifications of animal use were further bolstered by philosophical doctrine, as the Cartesian school of thought gained popularity during the seventeenthcentury According to Descartes and his followers, animals were simply intricate andsoulless machines; automata which, although they could produce apparently complexbehaviour, were devoid of the capacity for reason or sensibility Such thinking providedthe legitimisation of much cruelty being inflicted on animals in the name of scientificprogress (Serpell 1996; Regan 1983) To what extent both the theological andphilosophical thought of the past actually influenced the everyday conduct of ordinaryfolk towards animals is another matter Thomas has alluded to many instances of humanaffection for animals that contradict the view that animals were treated like mechanicalobjects rather than sentient beings Moreover, he also reveals that the commitment to theprevailing theological doctrine of human ascendancy may not have always been quite asstrong or influential in everyday life as one might be led to believe (Thomas 1983:92–120)

By the eighteenth century, the bible had become subject to rather less literalinterpretation As a consequence, the notion that humans were the caretakers of thenatural world, rather than the controllers of it, grew in popularity and influence Thisnew-found Christian concept of stewardship entreated that animals should be treated carefully, respectfully and responsibly Humans had a clear duty to animals to ensure thatthey were fed, sheltered and cared for adequately, should be slaughtered as quickly andpainlessly as possible and not needlessly over-exerted (Maehle 1994:85) Animals could thus legitimately be exploited for necessary human ends, such as for nourishment andtraction, as long as they were exploited with due care and respect Further to this change

in theological thinking, from the mid-eighteenth century onwards, there was increasinginterest in the welfare of the animals used by human society, which in turn was supported

by a growing knowledge of both animal and human anatomy and physiology whichsuggested that animals were indeed sentient creatures capable of feeling pain This issue,

with regard to the nature of our use and treatment of animals, came to be encapsulated in

Jeremy Bentham’s much quoted dictum: ‘the question is not, Can they reason? Nor, Can they talk? But, Can they suffer?’ (quoted in Regan 1983:95) Such early discussions on

animal sentience and human duties to other creatures provided the basis for the evolution

of the animal rights and welfare movements that today either seek to improve the lot ofanimals in human society or eradicate animal exploitation altogether Yet, in spite of suchchanges in thought and theological tradition, as we continue to advance towards thetwenty-first century, our use of animals appears to have steadily intensified, rather than to have diminished As the introductory discussion above demonstrates, it is evident thatmodern industrial society is highly dependent on the exploitation of animal resources;though, at the same time, we also seem to be far less aware of the great extent of thatdependency

The Christian concept of stewardship and the notion of our duties towards other animals discussed above to some extent touch on the second main theme with which thisbook is concerned, namely the human responsibility to adequately feed and care for theanimals that are used to service human needs However, when I speak of responsibility, it

is not in terms of our duties and moral obligations towards animals, but is instead interms of human interest The animals with which this book is primarily concerned arethose domesticated species on which we most depend to meet our routine nutritional,economic and affective needs.3 Most particularly where food-producing animals and beasts of burden are concerned, it has always been in the practical interests of theirhuman owners to ensure that they receive at least the very minimum of nourishment andhuman attention to their condition As Andrew Johnson has pointed out, livestock arefirst and foremost the farmer’s property, and must be fed and cared for because of their future value, both monetary and nutritional (Johnson 1991:10) There are, therefore,practical limitations to the way in whichanimals can be treated By abusing or neglectingthem productivity and profit are potentially put in jeopardy In order to exploit animals tothe full, it is also imperative that they be kept fit and free from disease; otherwise there is

a risk that they will fail to adequately fulfil their intended function within human society

By choosing to keep and use other species to meet human needs and requirements,humankind has saddled itself with the responsibility for protecting and preserving theirhealth and well-being: we have, therefore, forced ourselves to endure the burden ofbeasts

Animals, Disease and Human Society explores the manner in which people have

realised and borne the responsibility for animal health throughout the ages It tells a talethat begins, some 10,000 years ago, at the point in human history when people first began

to incorporate animals within the bounds of human social organisation through theprocess of domestication The domestication of animals, I shall argue, has had far-reaching consequences for humankind Although the enfoldment of animals into humansociety enabled humans to secure a fairly reliable source of food and other secondaryproducts, it led to an increasing dependence on the social and agricultural arrangementsinvolved in maintaining this resource Animal domestication and the inception oflivestock husbandry, as we shall shortly see, resulted not only in a critical transformation

in the relationship between humans and other animals, but also precipitated profound

changes in the structure of human society and the nature of social relations Domesticatedanimals came to constitute an important natural resource that, although renewable,required careful maintenance Caring for these animals from the cradle to the table thusbecame an important preoccupation within human society People were obliged todevelop the practical knowledge, skills and discipline necessary to ensure a continual andhealthy supply of food-producing animals A further and more insidious consequence of animal domestication, and one that is pivotal to this book, was that it created increasedopportunities for the transmission of infectious disease The impact of animal disease onhuman society is thus a central theme that recurs throughout this book and I haveattempted to trace the measures that people have implemented throughout history toreduce or preclude the risks posed by animal disease in order to preserve the health ofboth human and animal populations

In this context, I have introduced the concept of the veterinary regime The notion of

‘regime’ is a particularly useful tool for sociological analysis In its broadest sense, the term ‘regime’ may be understood as a ‘constellation of more or less institutionalised behaviour’ (Spier 1996:5) It can be seen to neatly encapsulate the complexconfigurations and interdependency of human relationships, most particularly withrespect to the practices and restraints that people (attempt to) impose on each other and

on themselves The concept of regime has in fact enjoyed increasing popularity in thesocial scientific literature of recent times, particularly in the Netherlands; finding greatestfavour among process sociologists, who have, for instance, employed the term inreference to religious regimes, ecological regimes, medical regimes and pedagogicalregimes (Spier 1995:301) Following in their footsteps, I have chosen to employ the term

‘veterinary regime’ to describe the social practices and institutionalised behaviours that have emerged in response to the problem of maintaining animal resources and protectinghuman health and economy This notion is central to my discussion and is intended toepitomise and encapsulate the growing and increasingly formalised ways in whichhumankind has sought to deal with the problem of animal health and disease as ourdependency on animal resources has continued to increase and intensify throughout thecourse of human history

This book is, therefore, also one that is very much about the history of animal medicine It is, however, quite unlike existing attempts to trace the evolution of theveterinary art Traditionally, accounts of veterinary history (e.g Smith 1919–33; Smithcors 1957; Karasszon 1988; Pugh 1962; Wester 1939) have tended to focus on thedevelopment of the scientific techniques and medical procedures that have furthered theadvancement of veterinary medical science throughout the ages In addition to this, theyhave also had a tendency to pinpoint and extensively discuss the key figures who havemade important contributions to the field of animal medicine Unfortunately suchaccounts are often devoid of social context; more to the point, they can often be ratherrepetitive, caustic in character and, in some instances, have clearly been copied more orless word for word—at least in parts—from earlier sources.4 Even the most recent—and most beautifully illustrated—publication (Dunlop and Williams 1996) to tell the tale of the history of veterinary medicine has unfortunately fallen foul of adopting thistraditional formula Moreover, even the attempts its authors have made to place the

events and developments within a broader cultural, social, economic or political contextclearly fall far short of standards of historical adequacy and accuracy; sweepinggeneralisations and inadequate citation by which one can verify the writers’ assertions being perhaps the volume’s greatest failings (Koolmees and Mathijsen 1996)

Veterinary history has, as a rule, generally been written by veterinarians interested in,and wishing to generate interest in, the history of their profession, rather than by socialhistorians For this reason, one can to some extent understand the lack of attention tosocio-historical detail and appreciate the fact that veterinary historical authors have often chosen to concentrate exclusively on, for example, the founding and development ofveterinary colleges (e.g Charnock Bradley 1923; Cotchin 1990), the work of militaryveterinary corps (e.g Smith 1927), the activities of the overseas veterinary services (e.g.West 1961) or the biography of influential veterinarians (e.g Pattison 1981, 1990;D’Arcy Thompson 1974) There are, as ever, a few notable exceptions to this rule Inrecent years, a handful of authors have succeeded in tackling aspects of veterinary historywith a keen eye for historical and cultural detail For example, Wilkinson (1992) haswritten extensively on the relationship between animals and disease in her work on thehistory of comparative medicine; Fisher (1995) analyses the origins of the veterinaryprofession in Britain, exploring transformations in European culture during the lateeighteenth century Similarly, Offringa (1971, 1976, 1981, 1983) traces the emergenceand institutionalisation of the veterinary profession in the Netherlands, drawing onsociological theories of professionalisation to structure his discussion; Koolmees (1997)explores the historical and social changes that underlay the introduction of publicslaughterhouses in the Netherlands and the increasingly important role of veterinary meatinspection; and finally, Schwabe (1978) examines early animal medicine and the cattleculture of ancient Sumer and Egypt, employing a considerable amount of comparativeanthropological data in his discussion Of the aforementioned authors, only the latter is infact a veterinarian; the others are indeed professional historians

My own account of veterinary history contrasts considerably with existing explorations

of the evolution of the veterinary art It explores how transformations in social relationsand the changing interdependencies between humans and other animals were responsiblefor, or were responses to, the emergence and intensification of the veterinary regime Thetechnological inventions, medical discoveries, changing surgical procedures or thebiographies of individual veterinarians, that have generally been the focus of veterinaryhistory, have thus been of far less interest to me In this volume, I have attempted to delineate the rise and intensification of the veterinary regime in terms of phases In short,four successive stages of development of the veterinary regime within European societycan be discerned:

1 a stage when there was no (need for any) form of a veterinary regime, either

informal or formal;

2 a stage when only an informal veterinary regime existed, but no formal veterinary regime had yet developed;

3 a stage when both an informal and formal veterinary regime coexisted and

competed with one another;

4 a stage dominated exclusively by a formal veterinary regime

This ‘phaseology’ is largely reflected in the chapter divisions that will shortly beoutlined Exploring the past in terms of phases, or stages of development, is in manyrespects far more flexible than explaining historical change in terms of specific eventsand chronology It is often difficult to say with any great historical precision exactlywhen or where developments occurred, particularly with respect to the earliest phases inhuman history Regarding history in terms of stages of development largely circumventsthis problem This approach to history has in fact been greatly influenced by the work ofthe Dutch sociologist Johan Goudsblom (1989a, 1992) Goudsblom has convincinglymanaged to highlight the relevance of history to sociology and has realised thepossibilities of employing a long-term sociological perspective The concept of process that he has introduced provides a most interesting apparatus with which the past can bestudied and its relationship to the present understood It is a dynamic concept that isbound neither by place nor time Moreover, it allows one to explore history withoutgetting bogged down in a mire of facts, figures, dates and places Looking at history interms of social process involves the identification of the major catalysts and trends thathave changed the course of human history and have irrevocably transformed the nature ofhuman social life across the globe (Goudsblom 1989a) Goudsblom’s work, particularly that on the impact of the domestication of fire on human civilisation, has provided animportant model for me both with regard to how a sociologist can approach history andhow I should discuss the consequences of animal domestication for human society(Goudsblom 1992) A second major, though related, influence on my discussion of therelationship between animals, disease and human society has been the world historian William H.McNeill His work, as will become evident in the following chapter, has

provided great inspiration for this book In particular, it was his remarkable work Plagues and Peoples (1976) that has acted as a springboard for my own study In essence, I have

attempted to pick up and develop a thread on animal disease and human social life thatMcNeill briefly introduced in his account of the impact of pestilence on humancivilisation

The theoretical concepts and assumptions that underpin this study are also largely contiguous to my attitude towards history As my adoption of the term ‘regime’ suggests, the kind of theoretical approach that I favour owes much to what generally goes under theepithets of figurational or process sociology This is a brand of sociological analysis thatderives from the work of Norbert Elias and his intellectual disciples At the very core of

this theoretical approach lies Elias’ magnum opus The Civilising Process ([1939]1994)

This epic study traces changes in the conduct of the western European upper classesbetween 1300 and 1800 In sum, Elias argued that these, often subtle, changes inbehaviour illuminate the more significant transformation of the structure of society thatoccurred during this period According to Elias, the entire personality structure ofindividuals underwent a significant transformation due to the changes in social relationsthat occurred alongside the process of state formation and the monopolisation ofviolence As people began to exert more subtle constraints on one another, theirbehavioural patterns and emotional make-up gradually changed, leading to new thresholds in self and social control, in addition to more differentiated patterns ofconduct One of the most significant changes in the personality structure was a growing

sensitivity with regard to impulsive violent acts, both in terms of witnessing andcommitting them This ‘delicacy of feeling’, however, extended much further than simply

an aversion to brutality and a growing sense of defencelessness As the chains ofinterdependence grew and more people were required to live with each other in differentways, sensitivities to other primal aspects of human existence, such as bodily functionsand disease, also increased It is also with this framework in mind that I shall examine thechanging nature of relationships between humans and other animals For example, theincreasing concern for animal welfare during the eighteenth century that was mentionedearlier can be viewed as a broader social response to the diminishing contrasts betweenindividuals and increasing sensibilities towards others that were taking place in widersociety at that time Often, in this book, I will discuss the changing interdependencies between humans and other animals; when I do so, Elias’ influence should be understood

as being implicit to my argument

Finally, it is pertinent to say a few words about the data on which Animals, Disease and Human Society is based This book is the product of both documentary and

ethnographic data that were collected during the course of my doctoral research Duringthe earliest phase of my inquiries into the nature of the human-animal relationship and veterinary medicine, I spent a considerable amount of time in the company ofveterinarians—working in urban, rural and mixed veterinary practices in the Netherlands—as a participant observer This proved a fascinating experience and afforded me a great deal of insight into the everyday work and social significance of theveterinary profession Moreover, it also provided me with the opportunity to meet andtalk to a wide variety of animal owners and witness the nature of their interactions withtheir animals, ultimately allowing me to gain a deeper understanding of both people’s attachments to other animals (Swabe 1994) and the inherently ambiguous nature ofhuman-animal relations (Swabe 1996) Accompanying vets also granted me access to particular settings—namely the farms where livestock are intensively produced—where I would otherwise most likely not have been particularly welcome Further to this,watching veterinarians at work also helped rid me of many of my preconceptions andromantic illusions about what vets do Within a short space of time, it became clear thatveterinary heroics, such as saving dying or injured animals, played a fairly limited role indaily veterinary practice, whereas tasks such as inoculation, parasite control, bloodtesting and neutering took up most of the average veterinarian’s time As a consequence

of these observations, my focus shifted decisively from looking at the curative to thepreventative nature of veterinary work, in addition to the role that veterinarians play inthe management of animal (re)production

In the course of my research, my project gained an increasingly historical character, eventually leading to the painful conclusion that much of the fascinating data I hadcollected in these early stages would, by necessity, have to be omitted from the endproduct However, at times it will be evident, particularly in the latter chapters that dealwith the twentieth century, that my discussion is based in part on my own experiencesand direct observations of veterinary work In contrast to my ethnographic research, thegathering of historical data chiefly involved tracking down as wide a variety of primaryliterary sources—or translations thereof—as possible, dating from classical times up until

the present day, in order to learn more about the rise of the veterinary regime Doing soproved most worthwhile, for much of the literature that I studied—particularly the material dating from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—often turned out to be replete with social rhetoric and historical detail that has generally been omittedfrom existing historical accounts of veterinary literature and ideas on animal medicine.Wherever possible, I have attempted to refer to such primary data, rather than depending

on secondary sources In addition to these ethnographic and historical documentarysources, being a truly ‘free-range’ researcher, I have also gleaned data from informal interviews with veterinary professionals and a wide variety of other informationreservoirs such as newspapers, television documentaries and the Internet

An outline of the book

As the above discussion has already indicated, this book traces changes in the animal relationship and the rise of the veterinary regime from the time of animaldomestication and the inception of livestock husbandry up until the present day Thebook, therefore, has an enormous scope and encompasses a huge time-span My discussion is often at the level of the general, rather than the specific I have nopretensions to have written a concise and complete history of human-animal relations and animal medicine; that certainly has not been the object of the exercise My intention is togive the reader an impression and understanding of changing human relations and thelong-term and far-reaching consequences thereof for human society As my discussion moves through time, it will become increasingly more specific and directed to thedevelopments that have occurred within European society One could thus see mydiscussion as a funnel that starts at the broadest level some 10,000 years ago with theorigins of agriculture and animal domestication and gradually narrows down to focus ondevelopments that occurred in Europe in recent centuries In particular, many of theexamples that are given derive specifically from Britain and the Netherlands; this islargely due to the limitations of language and the practical constraints of research.Particularly where developments in veterinary medicine are concerned, both the Britishand Dutch examples are indeed somewhat quirky Yet, as will become evident later inthis volume, they provide an exceptionally good illustration of the necessity for thedevelopment of an effective state-directed veterinary regime—as to some extent already existed in other parts of western Europe during the nineteenth century—and the consequences of failing to do so

human-Leaving such issues aside, I shall now briefly outline the content and structure of this book As a whole, the book is structured in a ‘phaseological’ and thematic fashion The following chapter begins with an examination of animal domestication and the origins ofagriculture, and explores the consequences of these developments in terms of humansocial relations and infectious disease More importantly, this chapter also sets out themain theoretical model—on the relationship between our control of, dependency on and vulnerability to animals—which will be returned to, both explicitly and implicitly,throughout the whole book Chapter 3 seeks to explore the relationship between animals,

disease and human society from ancient times up until the early modern period It willdiscuss the increasing exploitation of animals and the nature of human-animal interdependence within agrarian society, with specific emphasis on the effects ofepidemics and epizootics on the agricultural economy This chapter will also examine thecharacter of early animal medicine and notions on animal disease and its control

Chapter 4 is concerned with the impact of the transition from agrarianism toindustrialisation on the nature of human-animal relations and animal medicine It explores how the scientific enlightenment, urbanisation and the changing nature of socialrelations influenced the establishment of formal veterinary education, heralding the birth

of the veterinary profession in Europe This chapter thus looks at the gradualformalisation and intensification of the veterinary regime In this regard, it also examinesthe emergent role of the state in dealing with the epizootic disease that plagued thenations of Europe during the early industrial age Governmental responses to outbreaks ofcattle plague in Britain and the Netherlands during the nineteenth century will form thebasis of the discussion Chapter 5 continues this tale of state intervention and control into the twentieth century This chapter explores the rapid intensification of livestockproduction during this century and the consequent further intensification of the veterinaryregime It examines the increasing risks to animal welfare, health and environment thatthe increased exploitation of animal resources has posed, discussing the increasinglyimportant role of the state and the inter-nationalisation of animal disease control Further

to this, this chapter examines the role of the individual large-animal veterinary practitioner in the maintenance and preservation of both animal and public health

Chapter 6 explores the nature and history of our relationship with the animals that wekeep as pets, rather than those on which we depend for food It looks at our increasingintimacy with and affective dependency on small animals, and explores how theveterinary regime has been extended since the mid-nineteenth century to encompass and care for pet animals The theme of animal disease and public health will also recur in thischapter in the light of a consideration of the health benefits and drawbacks of keepinganimals as pets Lastly, Chapter 7 attempts to bring together and recapitulate the mainthemes discussed in the volume and will consider what the future holds for the human-animal relationship Chapter 7 thus explores recent biotechnological advances, such asthe genetic modification and cloning of animals, and discusses the newly emergingpossibilities for the increased exploitation of animals, e.g xenotransplantation, theproduction of biopharmaceuticals, etc., that are on today’s scientific agenda The genetic modification of animals will be considered not only as a novel form of animalexploitation, but will also be taken to epitomise humankind’s increasing dependence on animals as a resource The consequences of such developments will also be discussed interms of disease, human health and the implications for the future role of veterinarymedical science in society

DOMESTICATION, DEPENDENCY AND

DISEASE

Introduction

The most primal relationship between humans and other animals is that of predator andprey The necessity to eat and avoid being eaten characterises the quest for survival inwhich both humans and other animals have been engaged throughout the course ofevolution As they evolved, humans became increasingly more formidable predators,capable of securing sustenance not only through consuming plant foods, but also byeating animal protein Animal flesh was at first most likely procured by scavenging onthe remains of creatures, which had either been felled by other predators, or had died anatural death In time, hominids and their archaic human successors became skilledpredators Freshly killed animals were consumed for food, their skins used to providewarmth, their bones as the raw materials for tools and their marrow eaten for extrasustenance Nevertheless, in spite of their hunting prowess, meat probably played only asecondary role in our ancestors’ diet Even after they had become accomplishedpredators, the bulk of their nourishment was most likely derived from plant sources,insects, grubs and birds’ eggs However, irrespective of the quantity or frequency of meat consumption, feasting on the carcasses of dead animals—whether deliberately killed or simply scavenged on—had potentially grave consequences for humans Eating meat, particularly when raw or poorly cooked, could result in illness and mortality.1

Although humans became accomplished hunters, the prey that they stood the greatestchance of killing and consuming were inevitably the old, diseased or crippled animals, orthe very young Healthier adult animals would have been more able to successfully fleefrom their predators (Baker and Brothwell 1980:2) If, however, an animal was diseased,infection could potentially be transmitted to humans through its flesh, marrow, andpossibly even its skin It is, for example, likely that during the Pleistocene era cattle herdswere affected by tuberculosis The ingestion of meat contaminated by bovine tuberculosisbacteria would have resulted in the possible transfer of infection to humans, who ifaffected by the bacteria stood the chance of developing serious illness The weakest andmost poorly nourished people would probably have been most seriously affected,whereas the more robust might have only developed mild or no symptoms whatsoever(Manchester 1984:162–3) Similarly, animals afflicted with other internal parasitic diseases might have caused humans to become ill if their flesh was ingested For instance,protozoal infections, such as toxoplasmosis, could have been passed to humans from theirprey (Brothwell 1991:19) It is also probable that tapeworms blighted our ancestors They

too would have been acquired through ingestion in their larval form in the flesh of pigs,cattle and other herbivores Like their animal and human hosts, such parasites are thought

to have a long evolutionary history It has, for instance, been suggested that thecysticercus larvae responsible for causing tapeworm infestation in humans originated

long before Homo sapiens emerged (Fiennes 1978:12) In addition to this, tick-borne

infections, such as tularaemia, would probably have been associated with increasedprowess in hunting and a closer relationship with prey, e.g meat processing and skinpreparation (Brothwell 1991:19)

In the case of some of these internal conditions it might not have been immediately obvious that the animal’s flesh was tainted More apparent imperfections such as external lesions, particularly those exuding pus, would probably not have been consumed.Suppurating flesh was most likely cut away and discarded (Baker and Brothwell 1980:2).Likewise, putrefying animal flesh would probably have been avoided The consumption

of rotten meat potentially leads to stomach upsets, if not more serious complaints, and itwould doubtless not have taken our ancestors long to associate their illness with whatthey had recently eaten In terms of physical development and brain size, our Palaeolithicancestors differed very little from humans today One can therefore presume that they hadsufficient mental capacity to ascertain which foodstuffs were liable to cause illness and totransmit this knowledge culturally Moreover, it is conceivable that early humansdeveloped an elementary understanding of meat hygiene and animal disorders.Archaeological analyses of food bone debris, dating from the late Pleistocene, evidencebutchery marks, which indicate complex forms of meat processing (Brothwell 1991) The religious practices of ancient civilisations and modern hunter-gatherers, particularly with regard to sacrifice and food taboos, suggest that early meat hygiene—if it existed—would have been tied to spiritual beliefs and ritual Notions of purity and defilement probablyled not only to a reluctance to eat the flesh of animals that had not deliberately beenslaughtered, but to bloodshed becoming of central value to meat itself Meat fromanimals that had not died by the human hand belongs to the category of the unknown andwas, therefore, probably not eaten (Fiddes 1991:65) In ancient cultures, religious decreesordained that animals chosen for sacrifice must be flawless Offering diseased ordisfigured animals to the gods would incite their wrath Furthermore, if the flesh of suchanimals was eaten, it was thought that humans might be cursed with disease (Koolmees1991:9) Similar beliefs may have influenced early human societies in their selection ofmeat for human consumption and the development of rudimentary standards of meathygiene

Apart from the potential for contamination with disease through meat consumption,procuring animal flesh might have presented other risks to life and limb for our ancestors.The more advanced and organised forms of hunting, such as game drives, entailed a risk

of being trampled to death or mortally wounded, particularly if animals behavedunpredictably Skeletal remains suggest that our Palaeolithic ancestors were considerablysmaller than us The ungulate species on which they preyed, however, were substantiallylarger and undoubtedly less placid than their domesticated descendants For instance, theaurochs, the progenitor of domestic cattle, stood at least two metres at the shoulder, withlong menacing horns and probably a temperament to match (Clutton-Brock 1987:64)

These enormous beasts were likely to have inflicted fatal injury on any human that stood

in their path By the same token, encounters with humans most likely had similarconsequences for animals Injuries sustained by animals in flight of their human predators

or from projectiles hurled at them would most certainly have weakened them leadingeventually to death, or increased susceptibility to other adversaries Our ancestors, ifunfortunate, were the quarry of other large animals The archaic human body wasdoubtless host to numerous parasitic infestations, which would have been deleterious tothe health of any predator that consumed its flesh Cadavers of humans who died anatural death—and were neither buried nor burned—would also have provided carnivorous scavengers with both a convenient supply of meat and a possible source ofinfection

Food thus formed the fundamental basis for the earliest interactions between humans and other animal species In essence, food is a central problem of ecology In principle,the natural world lives in balance, albeit often an uneasy one The concept of the foodchain neatly encapsulates the nature and complexity of the web of interdependencies andsymbioses between species One species will prey on another which in turn will providenourishment for yet another and so forth This predatory relationship is often explicit; theanimal that eats will be larger or stronger than the one that is eaten However, even when

a species appears immune to outside attack, it is inevitably vulnerable to attack fromwithin The enemy may be invisible to the naked eye, parasitically living within orfeeding on the tissue of the apparently invulnerable, either directly or through anintermediary such as an insect As Burnet and White observe, ‘the tiger may be lord of the jungle, but its lungs may be riddled with parasitic worms’ (Burnet and White 1972:7) Microparasites operate more or less like other predators—one simply cannot see them with the naked eye Microbes are omnipresent where any other living creature exists andplay an important role for all life on Earth The vast majority of microorganisms whichlive in animals, including humans, are either commensal or perform a valuable functionwithin the animal host They are perfectly adapted to and live harmlessly in symbiosiswith their hosts Microbes, for instance, help their host to digest and gain nutrients fromfood They can, however, as the above discussion suggests, have a detrimental effect ontheir animal hosts, or on the predators who eat them In short, microorganisms can causedisease

Disease occurs as the consequence of a microbe entering a host, or part of a host, towhich it is not wholly adapted, but within which it can grow and flourish As a result ofthis incursion, the host’s biological defences are brought into action If these defensiveprocesses are overtaxed or unsuccessful, the host becomes ill and may die If the hostexpires, the parasitic organism will perish, since it is deprived of a living host on which itcan feed That is, of course, unless it can find a new one The parasites which are poorlyadapted to the host, or accidentally find themselves in a new host, are thus the mostdangerous and potentially lethal (Postgate 1992:51–3) There are many ways in which pathogenic organisms can be transmitted to their new host As illustrated above, ourancestors were most likely blighted by disease-causing organisms that they ingested along with the flesh of their animal prey Pathogens, however, can also be transmitted bydroplet infection, in soil or water, through the exchange of bodily fluids and the bite or

incursion of an intermediate host, such as an insect The balance between parasite andhost can thus be disturbed leading to potentially devastating consequences for either one

or both parties Likewise, the equilibrium between predator and prey can be destabilised,leading to profound repercussions for the entire ecological system—including the relationship between microparasites and their hosts

This chapter is concerned with the changing relationship between human predators and their animal prey and its impact on natural ecological balances Human evolutionarysuccess, cultural development and expansion into new environmental realms led tofundamental changes in the relationship between species The gradual shift from huntinganimals to herding them, which began within some human societies around 10,000 yearsago, transformed the age-old relationship between human predator and animal prey forever Rather than devoting their attention merely to procuring meat and other by-products of dead animals, some human groups began to turn their attention to livinganimals in a bid to obtain their nourishment (Meadow 1989) The emergence ofagriculture and animal husbandry not only had significant consequences for the furthercourse of human-animal relations, but it also had a profound impact on the way in whichhuman beings lived together Furthermore, the ecological transformation exacted by theshift to an agrarian regime led to the irreversible disruption of delicate ecologicalbalances, creating new and potentially lethal threats to the health and well-being of humankind and that of other animals In this chapter, I will explore the consequences ofanimal domestication and agrarianisation for the human-animal relationship, human social life and health First, however, I shall examine the socio-cultural evolution of humankind, which eventually culminated in domestication, and the establishment of anagrarian regime There have, in recent times, been numerous attempts to explain why—after many thousands of years—our ancestors abandoned scavenging, hunting and gathering in favour of animal husbandry and agriculture In this chapter, I have chosen tooutline some of the most influential and interesting of these theories By producing such asynthesis of recent thought on the origins of agriculture and animal domestication, I hope

to paint a backdrop for my own story, which is, in essence, a tale of domestication,dependency and disease

The origins of agriculture: the changing human relationship with the

natural world

The detail that we possess on early human social life and cultural development, prior tothe emergence of written records, is derived largely from the analysis of fragmentsexcavated from our remote past Geological conditions, geographical location andcarbondating can help us to locate archaeological artefacts in place and time Objectssuch as animal bones—crucial to understanding domestication—yield fragments of information about the occurrence and morphology of particular animals, the climate andenvironment in which they lived and even the diseases or injuries from which theysuffered They can also indirectly suggest the existence of a broad range of humanactivities such as hunting, butchery, agriculture, trade and even religion Marks on bone

fragments, for example, may indicate whether an animal was skinned, chopped up or itsflesh cooked Moreover, it can be deduced what kind of implements were used to preparethe carcass Similarly, dental wear might indicate that an animal wore a bit and washarnessed In this way, it can be determined where, when and which human groupsexploited animals for traction or transport (Rackham 1994:14–15) In addition to the analysis and comparison of such archaeological artefacts, the detail of the past is filled inthrough extrapolation from both anthropological studies of present-day hunter-gatherers and ethological data

From all these data, it is possible to reconstruct the past The knowledge that has been gleaned from archaeological artefacts and objects is, however, in itself the source ofcontention amongst experts The past is continually being reinterpreted in the light of newfindings and theories about our ancestors and the way in which they lived What is clear,though, is that the emergence of humankind and its various exploits are, in terms of thehistory of the Earth as a whole, very recent developments As Marvin Harris succinctlyputs it, ‘if the evolutionary clock from the origin of life to the present is reduced to thescale of 1 year, human beings make their appearance at about 8 p.m on New Year’s Eve’ (Harris 1985b: 42) The recentness of the processes of domestication andagrarianisation can be put into even greater perspective when they are situated within thebroader context of millions of years of hominid and human evolution The first truehominids emerged some five million years ago; being followed a couple of million years

later by Homo sapiens Hominids and archaic humans, however, spent the best part of

their existence as scavengers, foragers, hunters and gatherers It was only a mere 10,000years ago that some, but by no means all, of our ancestors took the first tentative stepstowards domestication, animal husbandry and the cultivation of plants: these activities infact account for less than one per cent of hominid existence (Davis 1987:126)

Domestication is generally taken to be the historical milestone that marks the mostprofound and definitive transformation in the relationship between humans and otherspecies Domestication is not only seen to symbolise the critical transition from simplytaking from nature to actively controlling it, but is also generally taken to represent themove which most clearly distinguished humans from other animals Yet although foodproduction through animal and plant husbandry is a development which very clearlyseparated human beings from other animals, the differentiation between humans andother species began to take shape long before humans switched from hunting animals toherding them Domestication was far from an overnight occurrence On the contrary, itwas a gradual process which in fact continues to the present day, subtly altering thebehaviour, appearance, functioning and distribution of other species and, consequently,our relationship to them In the following discussion, I will explore the development ofhumankind and its changing relationship with other species It will become clear that asour own species developed into proficient formidable hunters and then agriculturalists,the balance of power between humans and other animals gradually shifted in favour ofhumans The balance of power between humans and microparasites, however, is anothermatter entirely, which will be dealt with later

The gradual differentiation of behaviour and power between humans and other animals can be traced alongside the gradual biological and socio-cultural development of

humankind The biological evolution of humankind led to the emergence of distinctivephysiological traits such as an erect posture, dextrous hands, a highly developed brainand the capacity to communicate through the use of symbols and facial expression Thelatter two characteristics ultimately gave rise to the development of the complex patterns

of cultural transmission and social organisation that are peculiar to humankind(Goudsblom 1990) The earliest cultural innovation which our ancestors made wasprobably the manufacture and use of tools The most primitive stone tools unearthed byarchaeologists date back around 2.5 million years Although such tools offer us somematerial evidence of culture, they do not necessarily indicate the degree of cultural sophistication their manufacturers possessed (Ucko and Dimbleby 1969) Moreover,given the ability of other primates, most particularly chimpanzees, to use objects takenfrom their immediate surrounds as tools, we must be cautious as to the importance weplace on such developments in relation to how they distinguished our forebears fromother species The innovation that fundamentally and decisively separated our hominidancestors from other animal species was the mastery of fire

The domestication of fire provides the most tangible testimony to human cultural influence on ecological processes Archaeological evidence suggests that our

predecessors Homo erectus were actively manipulating this natural phenomenon some

400,000 years ago How efficient these hominids were at using this resource is here notthe issue Suffice it to say that over the course of time, these hominids and then theirmore successful successors—archaic humans—developed the mental, physical and social skills necessary to keep fires burning and to actively use fire to protect themselves AsGoudsblom (1990, 1992) argues, the ability to control and reproduce this natural forceand use it to their advantage effectively allowed our ancestors to gain a degree ofsuperiority over the other species with whom they were competing for food.Notwithstanding the complex cultural transmission, foresight and self-constraint necessary to achieve and maintain the control of fire, early humans—through their singular and eventually universal ability to manipulate this natural substance—ensured their own species’ survival above that of their predatory competitors Fire control enabled human populations to move north to explore new territories and to survive the coldglacial climates of the Ice Age Furthermore, it extended the variety and availability ofanimal foods, since meat could not only be cooked, but could also be preserved throughsmoking or drying (Clutton-Brock 1987:188) In short, by mastering fire, humans clearly distinguished themselves from other animals and improved their survival chances andpredatory skill Moreover, as a consequence of fire domestication, the fates of otherspecies—both animal and plant—were to be inextricably linked with human evolution and socio-cultural development

The gradual social and cultural evolution of humankind laid the foundations for the eventual domestication of animals and plants Alongside the socio-cultural developments which accompanied tool and fire use, our progenitors achieved a high degree of socialorganisation through their hunting activities It has been suggested that the hunting oflarge ungulates during the Pleistocene period was probably ‘one of the formative activities that led to the integration and coordination of all other behavioural patterns inthe social evolution of humans’ (Clutton-Brock 1994:24) Human predatory success is

most closely linked to our species’ highly social nature The need to provide food for the collective plausibly formed the basis for the exceptionally complex social behaviour ofhuman beings Although other social carnivores such as wolves were probably aseffective group predators as humans, our ancestors were able to surpass them throughboth a high degree of cooperation between individuals and the development ofincreasingly innovative means of killing animals, such as the use of projectiles andsetting fire to forests in order to drive animal herds to their deaths (Clutton-Brock 1994:24) In addition to this, a detailed knowledge and understanding of the behaviour ofother animals would have been imperative to the successful hunting of them Therecognition of changing seasons, the migration patterns of animal herds, seasonalappearance of various plants and flowers, and knowing which parts of animals and plantswere good to eat, etc., facilitated human survival, for such environmental appreciation—and the cultural transmission thereof—would have provided our forebears with constantand varying sources of nourishment

Humans, in short, became highly efficient hunters and gatherers, capable of findingsustenance under whatever circumstances, both climatic and geographic, they foundthemselves This manner of subsistence continued unabated for many thousands of years

of human existence Our ancestors lived an exclusively nomadic life, surviving bymoving from place to place searching for, or following, potential prey and accumulatingfresh stocks of plant food However, around ten thousand years ago, a fundamental andirreversible change in human lifestyle was initiated Some human groups began to settle,and the hunter-gatherer way of life was gradually supplanted by the tending of livestock and the tilling of land Just why some of our forebears forsook the ways of old for aninherently more arduous and precarious existence is unclear It is generally acknowledgedthat there must have been some kind of environmental pressure that forced them to tendtheir quarry rather than track it Numerous hypotheses—often explicitly based on Malthusian principles of causality—have been put forward to explain this transition Themost renowned theory on the origins of agriculture was advanced by the archaeologistV.Gordon Childe during the 1930s It was in fact Childe who coined the expression ‘the Neolithic Revolution’ He believed that this phrase would highlight the inception of agriculture as a crucial stage of human cultural development—a great, though not sudden, leap forward for humankind In Childe’s view, the substantial reorganisation of technology, which the emergence of agriculture involved over a relatively short period oftime, resulted in periods of rapid population growth and the reorganisation of socialinstitutions (Cohen 1977:2–3) Domestication, he argued, occurred as a consequence ofpost-glacial desiccation Childe postulated that after the last Ice Age, regions such as the Near East became far drier Shrinking water sources meant that the environment could nolonger support as much animal life as previously This led to the concentration ofpopulations around fertile oases, subsequently forcing humans and other animals intodeveloping intimate and mutually dependent relations Rather than parasitically takingfrom nature, Childe argued, Neolithic societies began to cooperate with it to protect andincrease the productivity of plants and other animals (Ucko and Dimbleby 1969; Barker1985; Redman 1978)

More recent research has cast considerable doubt on whether such drought and the

creation of oases actually occurred at the end of the Pleistocene (Cohen 1977:8) SinceChilde, many hypotheses have been put forward to explain the origins of agriculture.Some of these have focused on the cultural conditions, suggesting that sedentism and theconsequent intimacy and familiarity with flora and fauna led to domestication Othertheories contend that the shift to agriculture was precipitated by population pressure.During the 1960s, for instance, the economist Ester Boserup stressed that populationpressure results in imbalances in resources which in turn leads to the adoption oforganised food production—the most intensive kind of subsistence strategy of all Increasingly productive methods of agriculture, she argued, demand increasingly moretime and energy on the part of food producers The agricultural mode of food productionwould thus only have been adopted as a result of the population pressures caused byextensive growth in areas which are unable to sustain such high levels of exploitation(Barker 1985:8) In a similar vein, Mark Cohen (1977) has developed an elaboratepopulation pressure model to explain the origins of agriculture Cohen explaineddomestication as a necessary and intentional adaptation, which occurred to meet theimminent crisis presented by overpopulation, increasing human food needs, and thefailure of the natural environment to produce enough to satisfy them The coincidence ofincreased population pressure and significant climatic changes following the last Ice Age,

he argues, resulted in the decline of environmental productivity and a reduction in the nutritional adequacy of the human diet, leading first to the deliberate cultivation of cropsand subsequently to the subjugation of animals, particularly in the Near East Cohen’s theory, albeit persuasive, has also come under fire More recent archaeological analysis

of human remains dating from the period just prior to the dawn of agriculture shows noevidence of malnutrition, thus contradicting his theory (Cohen and Armelagos 1984:597)

In addition to the above explanations, there exist less well-known hypotheses about the origins of agriculture which are, perhaps, less easily verifiable through the examination ofarchaeological artefacts Hayden (1992), for example, has submitted an alternativeexplanation for the transition to agriculture, which, he argues, does not hinge on notions

of population pressure, climatic change or ‘other relatively popular explanatory factors’ (Hayden 1992:11) Instead he proposes a ‘competitive feasting’ model to explain the domestication of plants and animals Hayden suggests that population levels inhunter-gatherer societies are maintained in dynamic equilibrium with available food resources Such societies necessarily operate on the basis of food sharing since they aredependent on unpredictable resources that can easily be over-exploited The obligatory sharing of food, he argues, makes any labour investment in producing food pointless.Everyone has equal access to food and, when resources are low, the entire group simplymoves elsewhere to where it is more plentiful (Hayden 1992:12) According to Hayden,the shift to agricultural food production could only occur in the more technologicallycomplex hunter-gatherer societies where fundamental resources were reliably found in abundance and were invulnerable to over-exploitation Under these circumstances, peoplecould survive without being obliged to share food with one another Domesticationtherefore, according to this view, occurred initially in the areas of abundant resources.The first species to be domesticated, he contends, were not used to provide dietarystaples; they were instead used to produce delicacies, most specifically for competitive

feasts Drawing on ethnographic evidence, Hayden asserts that such feasts emerged as aresult of the establishment of more defined social hierarchies Ambitious individualswould demonstrate their power and success by being able to produce such luxury foodsthrough intensive production Domesticated food, he argued, would only be depended on

as staples once they could be produced competitively with other available food resources,e.g wild game (Hayden 1992:12–13) This novel theory clearly challenges the idea that agricultural production emerged in response to scarcity However, one could converselyexplain such feasting as a ritual recognition of the importance of specific animal species

to a particular society and that society’s dependence on them Such ceremonial feasting and ritual sacrifice may, therefore, have had a disciplinary function, to teach people not tokill animals indiscriminately, thereby conserving an important resource (Goudsblom1989b)

In recent years, explanations of the origins of agriculture and domestication have tended to move away from theorising about human innovative response to environmentalchange or speculating about early human social relations Instead these developmentshave been increasingly viewed as the product of evolutionary process (e.g Rindos 1984;Budiansky 1992) This approach will be discussed below with respect to thedomestication process specifically Whatever the possible environmental, socio-economic

or evolutionary reasons for the switch to agriculture, there is a general consensus that thefirst synchronous steps towards domestication were made in the Near East and east Asia

A separate, probably later, centre of domestication has been located in the Americas,particularly around Mexico and the Andes Since the end of the nineteenth century, theNear East has been portrayed as the ‘hearth of agriculture’ and it is here that evidence of early human settlement and the remains of the progenitors of our most importantdomestic livestock species, i.e sheep, goats, cattle and pigs, have been unearthed (Davis1987:128) It is thought that during the early Holocene (i.e the period extending from10,000 years ago to the present day), this arid region—often described as the ‘fertile crescent’—had insufficient natural resources to sustain the growing human population This was in contrast to the colder northern and western Europe, where large mammalssuch as deer still lived in abundance and wild nuts provided bountiful plant foods,allowing human populations to continue leading a hunter-gatherer existence (Clutton-Brock 1987:47–8) However, for humans to survive in the warmer Near East, it became necessary to store food in order to endure times of scarcity The extreme temperaturesexperienced in this region make the preservation of animal flesh more problematic than

in colder, northern climates Under such conditions, meat rots quickly, even when dried,rendering it unpleasant to eat if not deleterious to one’s health The establishment of grain reservoirs, supplemented by the storage of meat in the form of livestock, would not onlyhave provided a more palatable and healthy supply of animal protein, but would have extended the possible range of human settlement in this region (Clutton-Brock 1994:25–6)

It has in fact been suggested that the deliberate cultivation of plants not only preceded animal domestication, but was also an important factor that gave rise to it As humansbegan to settle and produce grain, the herds of wild sheep and goats, which naturally fed

on wild grasses, were forced into closer proximity to humans in their search for food

This, of course, would have made hunting far easier; people would not have to go insearch of their prey, instead it would more or less come to them However, the movement

of these flocks would have to be restricted—most probably with the aid of dogs—in order

to stop them consuming the best of the grain, and their numbers could be artificiallycontrolled by slaughtering male animals to conserve both the species and the crops(Harris 1985b: 157–8) Because human movements were limited by settlement and cropcultivation, there was a great danger that over-hunting would greatly reduce the supply ofanimal protein and hide, possibly leading to the extinction of species Keeping andmaintaining animals as livestock would thus ensure the local availability and a renewablesupply of meat Zeuner (1963) also viewed the domestication of animals as a necessarydevelopment to prevent ‘crop-robbing’ herbivores such as cattle from devouring human crops and depleting the grain supplies necessary to survive the winter As a corollary tothis, Clutton-Brock has suggested that the need to keep marauding animals away from growing crops might have also provided the incentive for early agriculturalists to keeptethered goats or sheep as a ‘live store of meat’ (Clutton-Brock 1994:26)

Animal domestication

Domestication is most commonly portrayed as a fundamental change in the nature of thehuman-animal relationship Some authors have envisaged domestication more as a continuation of existing human-animal relations; in other words, as an extension orelaboration of the hunter-prey relationship, rather than as a complete break from it Domestication can in this way be viewed as the end product of a series of graduallyintensifying relationships between humans and other animals (Higgs and Jarman 1969).With respect to this, Jarman and Wilkinson (1972) deem it inappropriate to focus merely

on the dichotomy between the wild and the domestic They suggest that this representsonly one aspect of a wide range of close relationships between humans and other animals Marginal cases, such as the reindeer economies and game-cropping of the present day, they argue, imply that this dichotomy may not have been so clear cut in the distant past(Jarman and Wilkinson 1972:83) Similarly, Hecker has proposed a broad spectrum ofhuman-animal interactions, ranging from the cooperative driving of animals to specialised hunting and culling to finally the selective breeding of domestic livestock(Hecker 1982:220–3) Although this view of domestication highlights varying degrees ofcultural manipulation and control which evolved over time to obtain animal protein, itfails to fully account for the radical changes in human social life and behaviour thatanimal domestication brought with it in its wake As Bökönyi points out, although human activities have—in some way or another—always interfered with the lives of other animals, domestication is ‘an interference of a quite different kind’ (Bökönyi 1969:219) The profound social significance of the transition from hunting to herding has, however, been incorporated into several recent definitions of domestication Meadow, forexample, describes animal domestication as being a ‘selective diachronic process of change in human-animal relationships involving, at the very least, a change in focus onthe part of humans from the dead to the living animal and, more particularly, from the

dead animal to the principal product of the living animal—its progeny’ (Meadow 1989:81) This process, he argues, manifests itself in two respects: first, in terms of thetransformations in the social and economic structure of the human societies whichassociate with the animals; and secondly, in the behavioural, morphological andphysiological changes which the animal undergoes as a consequence of domestication(Meadow ibid.) Similarly, Clutton-Brock defines a domesticated animal as ‘one that has been bred in captivity for purposes of economic profit to a human community thatmaintains complete mastery over its breeding, organisation of territory, and foodsupply’ (Clutton-Brock 1987:21) She goes on to argue that domestication is both a cultural and biological process which ‘can only take place when tamed animals areincorporated into the social structure of the human group and become objects ofownership’ The morphological transformation of the animal occurs subsequent to its initial integration into human society (Clutton-Brock 1989:7)

The successful domestication of animals was most likely the product of a long-term process of trial and error It has been suggested that early human efforts to tame otheranimals were a product of the highly social nature of humankind Clutton-Brock, for instance, contends that the enfoldment of other species into human society was anextension of the practices of ‘sharing, nurturing and protecting weaker members of thehuman group’ (Clutton-Brock 1994:24) The assumption that our ancestors would havebeen prepared to tolerate or support weaker persons, other than perhaps infants and youngchildren, let alone members of other species, is somewhat suspect Historical andanthropological accounts, however, confirm that in some societies, women suckled youngmammals along with their human offspring (Serpell 1989, 1996; Clutton-Brock 1987, 1994) This suggests that within early hunting and gathering societies, juvenile animalswere perhaps trapped, nurtured and raised alongside humans and were granted a certainlevel of protection by their human captors The European explorers of the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries recorded many instances of pet-keeping and affection for small animals amongst the indigenous peoples they encountered On the basis of their accounts,during the late nineteenth century, Francis Galton postulated that the ‘savage’ penchant for taming and caring for small animals as pets provided the basis for the development oflivestock keeping (Serpell 1989:10)

This notion has in fact provided a cornerstone for many explanations of the origins of domestication, most particularly with regard to the early assimilation of dogs into human

society Archaeological findings suggest that Canis familiaris was probably the first

animal species to undergo domestication Unlike later domesticates, dogs were not—as far as we are aware—much eaten Instead, they were most likely used as an aid for obtaining meat It is widely assumed that the domestic dog descends directly fromwolves Wolves exhibit complex social behavioural patterns similar to humans They areefficient group predators with a social structure based on a dominance hierarchy It isthought that our ancestors began to develop a close association with wolves by rearingyoung cubs that they had caught or found The hypothesis follows that some of the moreplacid of these animals reached maturity and accepted human beings as pack members intheir adulthood These tamed animals began to breed in human captivity and, over severalgenerations, eventually developed behavioural characteristics distinct from their wild

relatives This process ultimately culminated in the evolution of a separate kind ofanimal: the dog (Clutton-Brock 1987:34–8) Humans and wolves were probably closecompetitors for food They shared the same prey and it is likely that they came into closecontact, wolves possibly learning to scavenge on the leftovers from human game drives and the parts of animals which humans preferred not to eat in times of plenty (Hyams1972:7–8) Although one can speculate on a mutual interest in proximity, it is perhaps more probable that humans saw a way of surpassing their lupine competitors in predationand securing food for themselves by using tamed adult wolves—and eventually dogs—to help in the hunt by detecting and tracking game, and later to help herd other animalsrather than prey on them (Clutton-Brock 1994:25)

The dog is unique amongst early domesticates, given that it was probably not domesticated specifically for food Most species that underwent domestication wereprobably intended as ‘walking larders’ Sheep, goats and cattle, for example, were most likely exploited as transportable sources of meat and other animal by-products At a later stage, as we shall see in the following chapter, species such as the horse, donkey andcamel were domesticated to provide muscle power for transport and traction, althoughtheir meat and milk were also consumed long before they began to perform these roles inhuman society Although humankind was effectively able to secure a constant supply ofanimal protein for itself through the enfoldment of animals into human society, the factremains that only a handful of species were ever domesticated successfully As Table 1illustrates, there are comparatively few domesticated species commonly found in Europetoday.2 The majority of these species originated in the Near East; others descend from theAmericas and were only introduced to the European continent following the discovery ofthe New World Whilst the appearance and behaviour of these species have changeddramatically since their incorporation into human society, they have flourished underhuman protection and have, in some instances, outlived their wild or ancestralcounterparts However, as Clutton-Brock points out, the benefits of living under the umbrella of human protection are somewhat dubious Despite the massive population sizeand geographic distribution of domesticated animal species in contrast to their wildprogenitors, these species have suffered ‘irretrievable loss of genetic diversity andevolutionary autonomy’ (Clutton-Brock 1994:27)

Although one might convincingly argue that this small number of species hasadequately met the needs and requirements of human society, both past and present, it isnonetheless surprising that so few species were actually domesticated by our ancestors.Historical accounts confirm that other animal species such as the oryx and hyaena weresuccessfully tamed in ancient times, yet these species

were never domesticated (Smith 1969) As countless anthropological studies and currentpet-keeping habits evidence, exotic mammalian, avian and reptilian species are often kept

as tame pets, though one could not in any sense describe these creatures as beingdomesticated or amenable to domestication Modern endeavours to extend the range ofanimal domesticates, such as the experimental herding of various species of Africanantelope, have also proved unsuccessful (Davis 1987:126–7) The failure to successfully domesticate other species such as the antelope can be linked to several factors Clutton-Brock (1987) argues that in order for a species to be domesticated, the following fivecriteria must be met:

Table 1 Domesticated species commonly found in modern Europe,

their probable wild ancestors, region and approximate date

of earliest domestication

Species of AnimalWild Ancestor Region of Origin Approximate Date

Source: Davis (1987)

1 The animal species chosen must be useful to human society

2 A species must be adaptive to any environmental changes that might occur as a result of living within human society

3 Like humans, a species must be social in nature and its behavioural structure should

be based on a dominance hierarchy, which will allow it to accept humans as a leader

4 A species should be able to breed readily and freely within the restricted territory which humans have determined for them

5 The species must be easy to tend, control and maintain

The independence, large inter-individual distance, strong sense of territory and substantial feeding range of antelopes makes them a particularly difficult species to herd.Although potentially useful to human society, the failure of the antelope to meet all of theabove criteria renders the species unsuitable for domestication (Davis 1987:127) Whilstsuch animals might not feasibly be raised as livestock or fully incorporated into humansociety, they can still be exploited as a resource by humans as game and their territoryhas been increasingly determined by humans due to urban development and, morerecently, the establishment of protected nature reserves or national parks One could thussay that rather than being domesticated, such species are ‘culturally controlled’ (Hecker 1982:219).3

As the above suggests, very few species have behavioural characteristics amenable todomestication; the animal, therefore, plays a crucial role in the domestication process AsBökönyi (1989) observes, domestication is a symbiotic process requiring at least two partners; it cannot be viewed from the side of one of those partners alone Domestication,

he argues, is ‘a special kind of symbiosis in the sense that one of the partners, man,influences the other by isolating, taming, controlling, breeding, and taking animals intonew habitats, etc., but the animal itself also plays an essential part in thisprocess’ (Bökönyi 1989:24) Although Bökönyi here refers exclusively to the behaviouralcharacteristics of animals and their potential for domestication, his plea to examinedomestication from both sides of the fence can be extended much further It has recentlybeen suggested that by looking at animal domestication from the animal’s point of view—rather than thinking about it purely in terms of how it benefited our own species—some of the intricacies of the domestication process might be unravelled Rather thanlooking at domestication purely in terms of the human exploitation and subjugation ofspecies, it has been proposed that we should instead seriously consider the extent towhich domesticated animals have profited from their seemingly unholy domestic alliancewith humankind Domestication should thus be regarded as a natural product ofevolution, rather than the consequence of human innovation

This alternative view of domestication has gained significant ground in recent years David Rindos (1984), for example, an evolutionary theorist, has attempted to explaindomestication and the origins of agriculture by highlighting the mechanisms ofbiological, rather than cultural, change Although Rindos focuses chiefly on the process

of plant domestication, his ideas can be extended to encompass the domestication ofanimal species To this end, Stephen Budiansky (1992) has drawn inspiration fromRindos’ work and has attempted to shed new light on the animal domestication process Basing his analysis on a wide variety of recent archaeological and animal behaviourstudies, Budiansky endeavours to steer away from conventional analyses ofdomestication by arguing that domestication was an evolutionary strategy not only forhumans, but also for particular species of animal The crux of this argument revolvesaround the idea that domestication was the result of the cooperative evolution of species

as a mutual strategy for survival Budiansky advances the idea that the adaptability andsociability of these species provide the most important clue to solving the riddle ofdomestication The earliest domesticated species—such as dogs, sheep and cattle—were highly opportunistic and did not restrict themselves to a highly specialised terrain or food

source; like archaic humans, they too were not loath to exploit new food sources orventure into new realms (Budiansky 1992:15) The propensity to adapt was imperativefor these species’ survival, particularly during the Pleistocene when vast environmentaland climatic changes occurred, threatening many species with extinction It wasnecessary for species to develop cooperative associations with others in order to ensuretheir own survival In the long term, this entailed under-going specific genetic and behavioural changes that would make cooperation easier

Neoteny, the retention of juvenile traits into adulthood—a feature of all domesticated animals and humans also—was probably the most important of these adaptations Thecuriosity and appearance of young animals, their willingness to freely associate withmembers of other species and care-soliciting behaviour are characteristics that domesticated animals continue to display during adulthood Such traits probably madethem far more malleable and willing to consort with humans than species that did not experience a perpetual youth (Budiansky 1992:80) In addition to this, the majority ofspecies that were domesticated shared similar social and behavioural traits with humans.Wild dogs, sheep, cattle and horses, for example, live in groups, which have a socialhierarchy similar to humans, with a defined social rank and means of expressingdominance and submission recognisable to other species Furthermore, ungulate specieshave a clear disposition to follow a dominant animal around If a human is accepted as adominant member of the animal group, then the rest of the herd or flock is instinctivelyinclined to cooperate with him Finally, domesticated species have a tendency to groomone another and tend to solicit and tolerate the attentions of others who might scratchtheir backs or remove parasites (Budiansky 1992:65–7) For the cat, the only domesticated species which did not naturally live within defined social groups orhierarchies, the close association with humans was simply one of social parasitism,although the species also underwent neotenisation (Budiansky 1992:98–100) In short, Budiansky contends that it was these traits and social affinities that naturally laid thefoundations for the domestication process and made intra-species cooperation possible Leaving aside the issue of exactly how and why domestication took place, it is reasonable to conclude that the incorporation of other species into human socialorganisation through the processes of domestication and selective breeding instigated acrucial and irreversible transformation in humankind’s relationship with other creatures

By deliberately manipulating and interfering with the natural selection of other animals,humans gained a degree of control over the destiny of other species Once tamed andsegregated from their wild conspecifics, domesticated species could only reproducewithin the bounds of human desire and requirements; even their food supply andorganisation of territory were determined by their human keepers (Bökönyi 1969; Clutton-Brock 1987; Hemmer 1990; Ucko and Dimbleby 1969) While ‘freedom’ was the price which animals had to pay for domestication, it could be argued that other speciesgot a pretty good deal from their tacit covenant with their human ‘oppressors’: they were fed, sheltered, protected from predators; thus their proliferation and survival as specieswas ensured Budiansky in particular lauds the success of this seemingly unholy domesticalliance by pointing out that domesticated animals today flourish, while their wildcousins are on the edge of extinction (Budiansky 1992:61) Others are more doubtful as

to whether thriving numbers can be equated with success, given the loss of both geneticdiversity and autonomy which animals have suffered as a consequence of theirenfoldment into human society (Clutton-Brock 1994)

Finally, the fact that animal domestication also marks an important cultural point for humankind must not be overlooked The notion that other living animals could

turning-be the objects of human ownership not only altered the equilibrium turning-between humans andother species, but also led to significant changes in relationships between humansthemselves as the concept and issues of property emerged Domestication thus resulted inthe increasing differentiation, in terms of both behaviour and power, amongst and withinhuman societies (Goudsblom 1992) This ultimately led to specialisation of labour andthe development of complex systems of social stratification based on who owned andcontrolled agricultural resources and who maintained them as underlings, in servitude orwage slavery In the following, the effects of animal domestication on human social lifewill be considered in greater detail As will the profound and unanticipated consequenceswhich the domestication of animals had for the future physical health and well-being of humankind

The unforeseen consequences of domestication: new risks and

responsibilities

The popular characterisation—as advanced by Childe—of the inception of agriculture as

a major cultural ‘revolution’ for humankind is a rather deceptive one It would in facttake several generations before those human groups who adopted the agrarian regimewould begin to truly reap the benefits of domestication or depend exclusively on meatand milk from domesticated animals as dietary staples Archaeological findings stronglysuggest that hunting and gathering continued in a fairly big way alongside agriculture formany generations Thus, although certain species had been domesticated, it seems thatdomesticated animals did not play a particularly great role in sustaining humanpopulations until long after their original domestication (Budiansky 1992:37–8) The amount of produce acquired through hunting and gathering was marginalised andinevitably diminished as agriculture and livestock husbandry advanced (Goudsblom1992:42) Furthermore, as will shortly be discussed, the exploitation of, and eventualdependence on, animal resources were to have unanticipated and far-reaching consequences for humankind In retrospect, the agricultural revolution was perhaps notsuch a great step forward for humankind as it was once thought In fact, at least for thefirst few thousand years, dependence on agriculture and animal husbandry probablypresented a far more precarious existence than the hunting and foraging of the past:agriculture is a much more labour-intensive activity that in addition does not necessarily guarantee a continual supply of food

The agrarian regime entailed radical changes for all those who adopted it The chief advantage of agriculture was clearly that food could be produced intensively andwould—in principle—supply the nutritional needs of ever-growing populations The increased control over the natural environment which the domestication of both plants

and animals offered eventually led to increases in the amount of food available andconsequently to increasing human numbers In order to feed the growing humanpopulation, increasingly more food was required This led to the clearance of virgin land,thus reducing the range of undomesticated territory in which people could hunt or gathertheir food In this way, it has been argued, agriculture became increasingly relied on asthe sole means of subsistence, for it led to the eradication of other competing systems ofobtaining food (Goudsblom 1989a:21–2) Thus, once agriculture had taken off, there was

no way of reverting to the old manner of subsistence As Budiansky suggests, instead ofbeing a revolution, the rise of agriculture was a ‘slow subversion’ that, once initiated, could not be stopped (Budiansky 1992:113)

However, in comparison to the relatively straightforward existence presented byhunting and gathering, tilling the land and maintaining livestock were hard work.Furthermore, dependence on the agricultural mode of food production greatly increasedhuman health risks Not only were those involved in agriculture prone to new forms ofphysical injury—for example, skeletal deformities may have been caused by carrying heavy loads—but they also ran a much greater risk of malnutrition and disease The agricultural lifestyle unavoidably resulted in nutritional problems and deficiencies,which, in turn, would reduce the individual’s capacity to look after crops and livestock.Previously, hunting and gathering had offered a more varied diet from diverse foodsources In stark contrast, agriculture restricted food sources to the highly specific crops

or animal flesh/milk available, the constant supply of which was never guaranteed due tothe possibility of drought, crop failure, parasitic infestation and infectious disease Thetopic of infectious disease will be returned to shortly in greater detail First, however, theimpact of agrarian life on human social life and social relations will be brieflyconsidered

As the above suggests, the inception of agriculture heralded the dawn of an onerousnew era for humankind The cultivation of crops and livestock husbandry was not onlyarduous work, but also necessitated an increased level of cooperation between individualsand, consequently, the formation of more rigorous personal regimes Increased controland manipulation of the natural environment resulted in a greatly increased dependency

on it and, more specifi-cally, the means (i.e agriculture and livestock husbandry) and social arrangements that were employed to control it As the agrarian mode of productionbecame more and more heavily relied on to provide sustenance for growing humanpopulations, the need to adequately maintain and improve it grew In order to secure areliable food supply, people would have had to depend on and cooperate with eachanother more than ever before As a result of this increased interdependence, individualsnecessarily learnt to better attune their conduct and actions to those of others Thedevelopment of a far greater sense of foresight was required in order to coordinateagricultural activities and ensure that food production would not be jeopardised Failure

to cooperate and adequately regulate behaviour could ultimately result in the needlessloss of livestock and crop failure, and increase the risk of starvation for the entirecommunity, not just the individual These new interdependencies thus led to the evolution

of what Norbert Elias (1994) described as a social constraint towards self restraint In

other words, there was increasing pressure within incipient agrarian societies for

individuals to regulate their own behaviour in accordance with the demands and situation

of others Avarice, indolence and negligence, for example, would have had far-reaching consequences for all With regard to animal husbandry, this self-discipline would have involved learning how to properly herd livestock, to selectively slaughter and breedanimals, to provide food, shelter and the protection of livestock from predators, to ensurethat captive animals did not escape and that they remained healthy

There was, however, a far greater differentiation in lifestyles and food-production than has thus far been suggested Although the hunter-gatherer lifestyle had become greatlymarginalised, there was another important and alternative way of life that evolvedalongside agriculture which involved neither the drudgery of tilling the land nor theharvesting of crops While the spread of agrarianism brought the existence ofdomesticated animals to the attention of the hunting peoples living on the periphery ofagricultural society, rather than embracing the agricultural mode of production in itsentirety, some of these folk adopted only some elements of it and instead becamenomadic herdsmen Pastoralism was a distinctly new way of life, but one that to a largeextent preserved both the independence that hunting had previously offered and a socialstructure based on kinship Thus, at the margins of agricultural life—i.e in grasslands of the European steppes and northern Arabia—an alternative mode of existence evolved; which, like agriculture, depended on the exploitation of domesticated animals In thisway, two distinct forms of human social life came to coexist in the Middle East It islikely that there was a large degree of interaction between the early agriculturalists andpastoralists Herdsmen, for example, probably brought their flocks to graze on the stubbleleft after grain had been harvested Moreover, they undoubtedly entered into traderelations with one another, for the surpluses that each way of life produced could beconsumed by the other However, as later history would attest, violent conflicts betweennomadic pastoralists and farming peasants were probably rife Once the pastoralistsbecame skilled equestrians, their assaults on agricultural communities becameincreasingly more effective and they were better able to pillage the fruits of agriculturallabour (cf McNeill 1963:17–18)

Domestication and the subsequent development of and dependence on livestockhusbandry or herding thus resulted in an important change in individual behaviour andthe structure of human relationships As the above discussion suggests, both theagrarianisation process and the emergence of a pastoralist way of life were accompanied

by an increasing differentiation in behaviour and power both between individuals andamongst human groups Within human communities, social hierarchies emerged based onpower, property and prestige As agrarian societies developed, the rank and status ofindividuals were eventually differentiated according to four main categories: peasants,craftsmen and traders, priests and warriors The vast majority of people in agrariansocieties fell into the first category and resided at the bottom of the social hierarchy: thesewere the people who tended, rather than owned, the land and animals (Goudsblom1989c:79–80) Competition for social dominance increased as individuals began tospecialise, leading to the emergence of leaders who were able to exercise greaterauthority over the rest It was probably these leaders, particularly priests, who exerted thegreatest pressure on others to learn and exercise self-restraint As Goudsblom (1989b)

suggests, priests were largely responsible for mediating farming activities Theknowledge of phenomena outside of human control that might affect livestock andharvests—e.g seasonal change, floods, drought, parasites—which they purported to possess accorded them a certain degree of power and veneration Consequently theybecame both responsible for and relied on to direct and determine when, for instance,seeds should be sown, crops harvested and how animals should be slaughtered(Goudsblom 1989b:71–2) However, as agriculture became an entrenched and productiveway of life, the role of priests in this respect most likely diminished as farmersthemselves learned to manage their own activities and transmitted this knowledge to theirkin Nevertheless, the foundations of organised religion and dependence on priests wereestablished and such religious figures went on to provide spiritual guidance and discipline

in other domains

In addition to changes in individual conduct and power relations within human societies, the transitions from foraging to farming and hunting to herding had significantrepercussions for relationships between human groups The pressure to acquire landincreased as human populations continued to grow The first consequence of this was themarginalisation of those human groups who had not undergone this transition Theintensification of agriculture, however, resulted in increased social pressures and tensionswith neighbouring agrarian communities and the nomadic pastoralist groups living on thefringes of agrarian society In order to survive, settled human groups were compelled toprotect their land, livestock and other produce They were thus required to createorganised forms of defence to safeguard their material possessions The agrarian lifestylemade human settlements far more vulnerable to attack from other groups who mightattempt to steal or destroy grain, livestock or other material possessions (Goudsblom1989c) Undoubtedly, the domestication of horses and the subsequent mastery of theequestrian art would have facilitated raids on neighbouring villages greatly The ultimateconsequence of the competition for and vulnerability of resources was that violencewithin human societies not only became more common, but that it also took on new andorganised forms With respect to this, greater differentiation occurred within humangroups as a specialist class of warriors emerged who would protect their own people’s resources and pillage those of neighbouring communities These warriors, alongside orinstead of priests, attained superiority within agrarian societies and became powerful, andsometimes oppressive, leaders The formation of a professional class of warriors,Goudsblom argues, marked the early stages of the monopolisation of violence withinhuman society Moreover, it manifests the increasing degree of interdependence betweenindividuals of divergent power, wealth and status The warriors were the most powerfulmembers of society, yet they were dependent on the peasant farmers to produce food.Conversely, the peasants were dependent on the warrior class to protect their livestock,crops and own lives (Goudsblom 1989c: 84–9) Human lives, however, not only becamevulnerable in terms of incursion from outside human forces, the transition to agriculturealso exposed them to, perhaps more potent, extra-human forces The final section of this chapter will deal with the formidable threat to human societies that such non-human forces posed